Thief of Hearts
by AttoliaxKonoha06
Summary: Irene is exhausted by the war in Sounis, and Gen decides to do something sweet for her. Unfortunately, Eugenides gets involved.


Eugenides sighed, exhausted. He had been shuffling along to meeting after meeting after meeting for almost two weeks straight. Trying to help Sophos put Sounis back together was a daunting task, and he hadn't been able to see his queen in far too long. He returned to his rooms around midday, savoring the break.

"Costis, can you move this chair please?"

That got the young guard worried. Costis stepped forward, preferring not to remember the old days when he heard that regularly.

"Is something wrong, your majesty?" It was a fifty-fifty chance the king would either answer honestly or ignore him completely, but Costis was used to it. It never hurt to try.

"Sounis is in the midst of a civil war."

"I am aware, my king. I meant anything else."

"I'm starving?" Eugenides supplied. Costis breathed out slowly, the beginnings of a headache pulsing behind his eyes.

"Gen,"

The king glared. Using his nickname was Costis' equivalent of a puppy face, and Eugenides considered it cheating. It only irritated the king more that it always worked.

"It has been some time since I have even seen my queen. At night she is exhausted, and my visits do not stir her. I can only imagine what she must endure during the day."

Costis felt a pang of sympathy. It never failed to startle him to remember just how young his king really was, and these most honest moments revealed him to be no more than a lovesick boy.

"I doubt Sounis would mind if you cancelled a meeting to be with your wife. After all, I'm sure he has been doing the same to spend time with Eddis," he said gently, hoping to coax a smile out of the other man.

"Costis, his country is in turmoil. I cannot abandon him now."

"Is there not _one _appointment that Relius could not handle for you?" Costis tried again. The kings dark moods, once started, lasted far too long for his liking.

"There is a one at-" Eugenides looked frustratedly to the clock, only to remember it never told the correct time. Another of Sejanus' pranks in an attempt to make him late to everything. He had never bothered to change it back. "At some point that is with the commanders of the garrisons in the Hinterlands"

Costis smiled. "I highly doubt anyone will be attacking there anytime soon, it is rather," he searched for the word. "Removed."

"It's barren, strategically useless, and full of no one but criminals. I don't even know why we hold onto it," Eugenides snapped. Costis was well beyond the phase of taking it personally.

"If you can't be nice I will give your guards strict orders to see to it you do nothing but nap today," Costis warned. "You're cranky and you clearly need it."

Eugenides gave him a half-hearted glare. It was more of a pout, really, and Costis tried very hard to hide his smile. He stared back at the king and crossed his arms over his chest. He probably couldn't out-wait Eugenides, but he could make quite the fuss attempting it.

The king sighed and waved Costis off.

"Then it's settled. I'll go tell your attendants," Costis said as he turned and walked into the anteroom.

Eugenides sat down in the armchair, facing out the window to look at the forrest. The deep purple Krokos flowers that grew there were Irene's favorite. Gen thought he should go out and pick some for her while he had the opportunity. Perhaps the flowers would be able to keep her company when he could not. But flowers wilted. He needed something more.

The king wondered if Irene knew the myth about the Krokus. Attolia was not so in touch with its past, not like Eddis at least. And it _had _been a while since he had told a story.

Eugenides made up his mind and stood gracefully, walking over to his desk. He flopped in the chair exactly as Ornon had told him not to do and dipped his favorite quill, the one with the golden feather.

_In the days before Attolia's forming, most of its lands were fields and forests. A young man named Crocus lived there. He was a good man with a pure heart, for he had stolen the riches of corrupt nobles to provide for the poor in his village for countless years. One day Crocus had gone down into the woods to a quiet, peaceful clearing near a river. He had given his friend directions to meet him there for a game of discus to practice for the towns upcoming tournament, and upon seeing a man crouching by the river, assumed his friend had arrived before him. However, when the man stood up he seemed to glow, and birds flit to and fro about him. Ducking behind the nearest tree, Crocus watched the man and realized he had accidentally stumbled upon a god._

_Crocus gasped in shock and quickly clapped his hands over his mouth, but it was too late. The god by the river had already heard him and asked him in a soothing, fluid voice to come out._

"_Ah, Crocus, it's you. Your friend has gotten quite lost and is now heading home."_

_Crocus tried to remember to breathe, and after doing so, realized what this meant. The tournament was only a short week away, and this would have been the last time Crocus would be able to practice. Crocus' face fell as his hopes of winning the competition were slowly slipping away. He would have used the prize money to repair the library of a nearby big-city, thinking that perhaps if more people could read and be educated, the less corruption would exist._

_The god looked at the boy and felt pity, knowing Crocus' good intent. Besides, the boy was a thief, and thus one of his charges._

"_Perhaps, Crocus, I could be a worthy opponent for the time being?"_

_Crocus was stunned, and looked up surprised into the eyes of the god standing before him. They were a bright, burning golden color like the sun, clever and intelligent. Most of all, though, they were kind. Crocus then recognized the god before him as his own god, Eugenides. He had never seen visions of him before, but the gentle warmth surrounding the man felt familiar and comforting. _

_Crocus still could not find his voice to accept, so Eugenides walked over and lightly slipped the discus from the boy's hand, motioning for him to back up. When Crocus still didn't move, Eugenides threw the disk towards the mouth of the river, and Crocus snapped out of his daze._

_With speed gained, no doubt, from running from guard dogs, Crocus sprinted after the disk and jumped to catch it. Unfortunately, the boy jumped right into the river._

_Eugenides laughed as he watched the young man resurface, spitting out water but triumphantly holding the discus. The new, light atmosphere put the boy at ease, although he had the nagging suspicion the god had purposely done this. He didn't mind._

_The game became more intense as time passed, and it took all Crocus had to jump, sprint, and dive for the disc every time his god threw it. Eugenides, doing the honorable thing and using only his human abilities, was also doing his best to keep the mortal from beating him. Eventually the god also once tripped into the river trying to make a catch backwards._

"_So much for being the god of balance, eh?" Crocus teased lightly._

_Eugenides smirked, recognizing a point scored, and decided to win the game with this last throw._

_The god pulled his arm back and let the disk fly. Crocus could only stare as the shining metal reflected every color of the sunset, time seemingly slowing down as he watched the disc come closer, and closer, and closer._

_Before Eugenides could move, the discus got too close, and Crocus fell to the ground with a cry of pain._

_The god rushed over to the boy and saw that the cut on the human's cheek was deep, blood gushing out and staining the grass. Eugenides knew Crocus would bleed to death, and that because the boy was only a mere peasant, there was no justification for Eugenides to interfere with the strings of fate and save him. However, the god could not accept this. He knew that his sister's priestesses and oracles had a sort of divine protection that allowed a god to directly intercede should one of them be injured. As a less well-known god, Eugenides did not have humans to do his bidding like Hephestia. Eugenides thought that perhaps it was time he got some, and so he blessed Crocus, making him the god's representative on Earth. Eugenides dubbed the boy the first Thief of Eddis, and as such, gained the power to heal the his injury. A feather-shaped scar was left in place of the wound, and Crocus survived._

_Still light-headed from the loss of blood, Eugenides walked back to the village with Crocus and saw that he got home safely. A week later Crocus won the competition and helped the towns in his area flourish, not by repairing the library, but as per his god's request, opening a school._

_One of the young boys in the new school, a son of the kindly baron who oversaw Crocus' village, amassed an army when he grew up, conquered the feudal lords, and united Eddis under one rule. The new King of Eddis gave his old teacher the political position of his Thief._

_On the day that Crocus took his oath to Eddis- the country, not the king, as Eugenides insisted- he returned to his room to find small, purple, lily-like flowers on his dresser. The next morning the Thief asked one of the kingdom's scholars what type of flower this was, as it looked new to him, and the scholar replied they were a new breed that grew by a quiet clearing in the woods near a river. They were named the Krokos flowers by the man who had first brought them in._

_Crocus asked who the man was, and the scholar replied that, although he had never seen or heard of him before, he had quite striking gold eyes and insisted that the name of the flower not be changed._

_Crocus thanked the man, and walking down the hall back to his rooms, smiled to himself._

Gen lifted his head up and stretched his back out. He looked out the window and saw the sun was setting. He must have been writing much longer than he thought. He always lost himself in stories. He set the papers aside, and let Philologos in to dress him for dinner.

The next day Gen woke up early and quietly dressed himself. He snuck out past his attendants' rooms and paid Aristogiton to let him outside. Once beyond the outer wall of the palace, the king slowed his pace in order to enjoy the early birds chirping and the pink of the sky as the sun rose. A light breeze blew and Gen walked down towards the river at the lowest point of the valley. He followed the river into the woods and, upon reaching the clearing he was looking for, he crouched down by the water. Using his good hand to hold the stem steady, careful not to prick himself on the small, hair-like spines, Gen used his hook to cut the stems cleanly, setting each one in a neat pile.

Gen glanced around and saw a rarer, red Krokos growing off of a log that had fallen out into the water. Scooting closer to the edge, Gen reached out as far as he could, successfully reaching the flower. This one was slightly more disc-shaped, for some reason, and Gen thought perhaps it was a new subspecies of the flower. The second the king grabbed the stem, all went silent. Gen tried to turn over his shoulder, and saw only a pair of golden eyes.

The next thing Gen saw was bubbles. Darkness and bubbles.

He resurfaced, spitting water, and cursing as he swam back towards the bank and pulled himself up.

Soaked to the bone and unamused, Gen bent down to grab the pile of purple flowers. He stopped, and instantly the chill vanished as he saw the red one laying on top of the pile. The king eyed the sky skeptically before a slow smirk crept across his face. He walked back to the palace and was pleasantly surprised at Aris' lack of reaction to his appearance. It was good to have stout guards, and Aris had once seen him coated in breading. The water shouldn't have been a shock. That was a story for another time, though. One he would not be telling his queen.

The squelching of his boots woke his attendants, and they rushed in to help him remove the dripping clothing and get into a hot bath. While the others tended to the king, Ion put the flowers into a vase.

Dressed in a rather elaborate red, Medean style coat, the king walked into his sleeping queen's room carrying a bouquet of flowers and a scroll of papers. He quietly tip-toed up to her bed and planted a gentle kiss on her forehead. Her eyes fluttered open to see bright purple shapes, still fuzzy with sleep, in front of her face. When her vision came into focus, she saw the flowers being pulled back and her husband's smiling face behind them.

"You sleep until noon, and then suggest _I'm _the lazy one because of the way I sit on the throne?"

"I run a country, I have an excuse," she replied curtly.

"So do I," the king said.

"Oh?" The queen quirked one eyebrow up at him in amused curiosity.

"Yes, my excuse is that Ornon said as a king I should try to see every side of every proposition. I believe I'll try sitting upside-down next, to see if perhaps I can learn something from that point of view."

The queen gave him points for finding loopholes, and decided, since he had taken time out of his schedule to come here and attempt to be sweet, she would let it pass. She would, however, later explain to Ornon to word instructions carefully when dealing with her husband.

"What are the flowers for?" The queen asked softly, still tired even after sleeping half the day away.

"To keep you busy," the king replied just as quietly. He realized he wouldn't have much time to talk to his wife before she drifted back off to sleep. He put the scroll down on the edge of the bed for her to read later.

"What's this?"

"I know Krokos flowers are your favorite, and I thought you might want to take a break from your informants long enough to learn where they came from."

She gave him a warm smile, thanked him, and promised to read it when she could. Then she fell back into a comfortable sleep. All in all he considered today quite romantic as far as their unorthodox relationship went. The attendant who came to inform him his next appointment had arrived knocked gently on the door post. His gold eyes glittered as he smiled before he disappeared around the corner and out of sight.

* * *

**AN: **The Crocus flower is a real native Greek flower, and the original myth was that Hermes (go figure it'd be a god of thieves) and his friend Crocus were playing Frisbee, but Hermes hit Crocus in the head with the disk and killed him. Crocus' blood turned into the flowers that have the ability to bloom even in severely cold climates and Hermes named them after him. The hero's name is Krokos in the original Greek, which is why I use that as the name of the actual flower. It can be spelled either way and Google will still know what you're talking about.


End file.
